


after and before

by frogbackpack



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Hell Trauma, How Do I Tag, Hurt Dean Winchester, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, sams also hurty but its not really the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 15:43:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogbackpack/pseuds/frogbackpack
Summary: swan song with a side of s4/5 angsty bullshit bc that's my specialty, babey!!!





	after and before

**Author's Note:**

> *pensive clown emoji*

Dean still has the taste of hell on his tongue.

He gets topside and showers for what feels like forever, but he knows he’ll never be clean again. Not really. The blood and the screaming of tortured souls don’t wash away easy.

Everything acts as a reminder to what happened to him. What he made happen to others. The handprint, red, puffy, burning but not physically. The memories ache. The scars upon scars he’d had before the hellhounds painted the walls with his guts are gone. New ones replace them quickly, different spots, same shifter checks, scratches, bites. It all comes back, new but old.

It scares him how much it doesn’t. He’s pissed and wants nothing more than Alastair’s head on a stick. It doesn’t even begin to worry him how happy he is when it happens. Hopeless, knew the second Castiel gripped him tight and raised him from perdition he’d never be the same. Dean Winchester is saved, until he isn’t.

Guilty, mostly. All those broken souls deserved better than to be cut and sliced and ripped apart, only to be put back together again, by his hands. He tries reasoning, they were in hell for something, they weren’t innocent, weren’t holy or clean or pure. Tainted souls turning demon, the whole lot of them. That only reminds him, maybe he’s no better.

Not long goes by. Or maybe longer than time itself. He keeps forgetting he’s back, times working normally again. The forty years are months again, and the seconds are nothing longer.

He hears Sam’s plan before he registers it. When he does, it takes every ounce of strength he’s got not to empty his entire stomach onto the floor. Because now his brother, who he swore to protect if it costed everything he never had, is gonna jump in the pit.

Dean knows, ok, he knows what they do down there. No mercy, no nothing except for pain, pain, and a side order of more pain. And this isn’t just hell. This is hells hell. Lucifer’s cage, his own little corner for him to control and command. And the thought of his baby brother who’s _not a kid anymore, Dean,_ throwing himself right into the devils scheming hands makes him sicker than hearing the hellhounds barking getting closer and closer till his own pain doesn’t hurt as much as hearing Sam screaming and crying against that wall does.

The night before Sam says yes, Dean will never as long as he lives admit it to another living soul, but he’d grabbed Sammy tight and hugged him and sobbed into his shirt until his arms felt numb, and longer after that. But, sure, no chick flick moments.

“You don’t have to do this. We can find another way. Please, Sammy.”

Sam held with shaking hands and, with an even shakier voice, said, “I started this, now I have to end it.” The _I deserve worse_ never leaves his lips, but Dean knows his brother well enough to know how badly he wanted to utter those words, how much blame he carries.

The look on Lucifer’s face when Sam says yes is enough to make Dean want to say fuck the rings, fuck the cage, he’s gonna kill this bastard with his own hands. 

He knows it’s all over and crumbling at his fingertips when the devil, wearing his brothers skin, smirks through saying, “Sammy’s long gone.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading teehee. now, if you'll excuse me, im gonna see how many eps i can squeeze in before my consultation in idk how many hours. wish me luck gamers.


End file.
